Meet Pamela

Meet Pamela

Meet the Artist and Facilitator

“I believe that the creative process is a birthright for all men and women as a resource for resilience, healing and guidance. My gift and my passion is to help people find ways of nurturing their unique creative wisdom throughgrounding in their sensual body.

Pamela Underwood, BFA, MA

With studios in both California and Texas, Pamela Underwood is sought after for private expressive arts sessions as well as facilitating expressive arts groups and retreats. Her Poway, CA studio offers expressive arts Labyrinth Walks at the change of every season. Walkers are invited to set an intention for the season and seal it in with expressive arts.

Pamela Underwood has been a professional visual artist for the past 30 years, a group and retreat facilitator since 1994 and an Expressive Arts Therapist since 2003.

After earning her BFA in art, Underwood spent three years at the Expressive Arts Institute of San Diego and three summers at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland, earning her master’s degree in Expressive Arts Therapy with a minor in psychology.

Pamela Underwood is a pioneer in expressive arts work with ‘body image.’ She founded the unconventional Bodywriting® Retreats for Women in 1994. During these expressive arts retreats each participant is guided in engaging her sensing body as her primal creative partner and connects with the body print that arrives on the canvas, as her companion.

She then works with the life size image, inquiring about what needs to happen next with personal response through movement, writing, sound and unconventional visual art techniques.

“We are all living with images as companions.”

Pamela’s teaching engages a paradigm shift based on the idea that humans live with personal images – from our past, present and future – as companions that inform our lives, for better or for worse.

“Living with Images as Companions” is the title of a provocative power point presentation in which Underwood tracks the painting process of “Maiden of Fire” (5″X5″ acrylic/ canvas). This amazing journey evolved over a period of 5 years, beginning when her home/studio burned to the ground in 2003.

During 5 years, the painting process was guided by the images that emerged through journaling and Pamela’s keen connection to what the images needed from her next. (Speaking engagements can be booked by emailing Pamela)

In 2004, Underwood developed the course, “Image Quest Sojourn™” , which helps others to connect with their body as their first creative partner and the images that inform their lives as companions.